Both the Strategic Planning group and the Executive Committee discussed
extensively the issues
raised by Deb Ballam et al at our respective meetings in Columbus this
weekend. Overall, there is
strong support for concrete action that would provide the AlSB with
effective and timely
empirical information to use with external persons/bodies, whether they
be Deans of the AICPA
or equivalent.

Our sense of the direction of the discussion on ALSBTALK was that, after
the immediate interest
in doing a survey was raised, recognition of the complexity surfaced –
who does the survey, who
is to be surveyed, is its value coming from a big name consulting firm
doing it, is it from its
academic “purity”, what is the impact of our role in commissioning the
survey? To this list we add
another obvious one, namely that of cost. Credible surveys are not cheap
– they take time, and
they cost a good deal of money.

The Executive Committee is suggesting we can and should embark on at
least two processes
immediately:

     1.   The anecdotal: the following proposal has been on our “back
burner” for some time. It
     now comes to the front. Anecdotal information does have real
persuasive value so long as
     it is not used in a way for which it was  not prepared. We would
like to gather testimonials
     about the importance of business law  from key players in the
business and professional
     communities. Should we get enough of significant quality they would
be gathered together
     in an appropriate manner for dissemination. Included in the meaning
of “appropriate”
     would be the possibility of video taping.

          Implementation: Peter Shedd will be the initial coordinator.
If you know an appropriate
     person  and you would be willing to make the contact and seek a
testimonial, please
     contact Peter at    . Peter will provide you with guidance as to
how to proceed.

     2.   Empirical studies: as we talked at our meeting, it was
apparent that there are a number of
     resources available to us already and likely many more that we have
not thought of that
     would help us provide answers to the question: what does our
constituency of employers
     of our students think the value of business law is to the education
of the students. For
     example, survey work individual faculty may be doing along these
lines; alumni surveys
     done by the school; any other collected information that describes
what business
     executives think were important courses for them, or is important
course content, or just
     generally is important information for the successful business
leader to have.

          We ask each of you to think of all source that may be
available to you or which you are
     willing to find out about or willing to have your School research.
Fran Zollers has agreed
     to coordinate this. She asks that you contact her directly with any
sources/resources that
     would assist us in providing answers to the earlier stated
question. As a rule of thumb, she
     suggests you think of primarily post- 1995 sources.

We wish to make it very clear that these two initiatives in no way
preclude the possibility of the
ALSB conducting a survey. They will, however, help clarify whether
indeed a survey is the
answer and, if it is, what form it should take. The Executive Committee
meets again at its mid-
year meeting in early April. We will be in frequent communication before
then both as part of the
strategic planning exercise and as part of our general responsibilities.
We will update you on these
initiatives as soon as we are able.

Again, thanks to Deb Ballam for providing the impetus on this issue and
thanks to everyone else
for their thoughts. If you wish to add anything to this discussion,
please get back to me or the
group as a whole.

Sally